It can certainly be scary to stick your hands and fingers into the mouth of a big catfish. But it has to be done.
Catfish are slimy, strong, and have barbs on their fins. Because of these things, you have often have to hold catfish by the mouth in order to keep them under control and handle them correctly.
But how dangerous is this? Can catfish bite your finger off?
No, catfish do not have the teeth or the bite force to bite off your finger.
If you have ever stuck your hands into the mouth of these whiskered beasts, then you know that it can hurt very bad.
Even if you hold a catfish correctly, they will sometimes bite down on your fingers and it will hurt quite badly. But catfish will not be able to bite your fingers off.
Yes, catfish can bite very hard, but they still can’t bite hard enough with the teeth they have to chomp off fingers.
A catfish bite will hurt and can tear up the skin on your fingers a bit, but that just makes it more fun in my opinion.
Catfish teeth are very similar to bass teeth. Their teeth resemble very rough and sometimes sharp sand paper.
Catfish have stronger bites than bass, but the teeth are almost the same, and are not inherently dangerous.
Even though catfish can’t simply bite or chomp off your fingers, there still are some dangers.
When you are handling big catfish, they have strong jaws and are very heavy.
Whenever you are dealing with big strong creatures, you need to be careful. If you are holding a big catfish, make sure you have full control.
If the catfish thrashes or whips around and you drop it, the weight of the falling catfish could rip off a finger if the fish is firmly biting your finger.
Now scenarios like this are very unlikely and only occur if you are dealing with really big catfish, it is still good to be aware and conscious of things like that.
There are three main ways to hold catfish. For small catfish, you can thumb lip the catfish the same way you would hold a bass.
You can also hold the tail with one hand and the stomach directly under the fins with the other hand.
These two holds work great when handling small catfish.
For big catfish, stick all four of your fingers and most of you hand in the catfish’s mouth with only the thumb outside.
Hold up the back half of the fish with your other hand. The full hand in the mouth give you much more control of the big, heavy cats.
Also read: Bank Fishing for Catfish at Night
I get it can be a bit scary to handle catfish. They bite hard and it will hurt.
But don’t worry about losing fingers because they just aren’t built for tearing through flesh and bone.
Catfishing is nothing to be afraid of and provides some of the most rewarding fishing experiences available.
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